{"product_id":"against-the-closet-9780822352419","title":"Against the Closet","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAliyyah I. Abdur-Rahman argues that from the mid-nineteenth century through the twentieth, black writers used depictions of transgressive sexuality to express African Americans' longings for individual and collective freedom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eAgainst the Closet\u003c\/i\u003e is an important and much-needed book, a significant contribution to African American literature, cultural studies, sexuality studies, and critical race theory. Aliyyah I. Abdur-Rahman's close readings of fictional representations of race and sex are nuanced and illuminating, and the history of racial thought and sexual science that she presents is indispensable.\"—\u003cb\u003eMaurice O. Wallace\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eConstructing the Black Masculine: Identity and Ideality in African American Men’s Literature and Culture, 1775–1995\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In this significant and timely text, Aliyyah I. Abdur-Rahman complicates and expands our understanding of the queerness of blackness, making a welcome contribution to black cultural studies, black queer studies, literary studies, and work on lynching and the making of post-slavery whiteness.\"—\u003cb\u003eChristina Sharpe\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eMonstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eAgainst the Closet\u003c\/i\u003e will benefit professors and ambitious undergraduate and graduate students of African American literature. With consistent theoretical acumen, Abdur-Rahman’s last three chapters likewise undermine dominant notions of modernity, normalcy, and belonging.” -- Regis Mann * Journal of American Studies *\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eAgainst the Closet\u003c\/i\u003e offers a bold and timely exploration of black sexuality across the ages that is as firmly rooted in the history of African Americans as it is deft and innovative with close readings. . . . Speaking through and with the traditions of black feminist theory and queer theory, Against the Closet makes an indelible mark in its fields.” -- Emily A. Owens * Palimpsest *\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eAgainst the Closet\u003c\/i\u003e is a story worth reading and retelling, as it weaves a lively, original, and complex narrative about the progressions of race and sexuality in African American literature, unencumbered by one way of reading or thinking about the material. It is both an informative and instructive critique of its subject matter, one that should be essential reading for scholars of black sexuality in African American literature.” -- Timothy M. Griffiths * Callaloo *\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eAgainst the Closet\u003c\/i\u003e is no traditional literary study. But the ride it takes us on is bumpy only in the sense that it boggles the brain with fresh insights and inspired interpretations at every turn of the page. From an introduction that is even more a tour de force of cutting-edge critical theory than the Michael Jackson conclusion, through four chapters of deeply probing, richly textured, finely nuanced readings, \u003ci\u003eAgainst the Closet\u003c\/i\u003e challenges much of what has been thought and theorized about how sex and race mean not only in African American literature but also in American history.” -- Ann DuCille * Novel *\u003cbr\u003e“By adeptly using local and national newspapers, Mckiernan-González provides captivating accounts of local residents’ perspectives on and resistance to enforced measures. \u003ci\u003eFevered Measures\u003c\/i\u003e joins Natalia Molina’s \u003ci\u003eFit to Be Citizens\u003c\/i\u003e and Alexandra Stern’s  \u003ci\u003eEugenic Nation\u003c\/i\u003e as essential studies of public health campaigns among Latinos. It deserves to be widely read by scholars of U.S. history, Latino studies, public health, and border studies.” -- Omar S. Valerio-Jiménez * New Mexico Historical Review *\u003cbr\u003e“The critical frame offered in \u003ci\u003eAgainst the Closet\u003c\/i\u003e clearly has far ranging applications for the most current African American literary authors. As such, this important book may very well inspire further consideration of how sexual non-normativity can create a space for new modes of liberation and self-definition.” -- Stephanie Li * Modern Fiction Studies *\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eAgainst the Closet\u003c\/i\u003e is an important book that theorizes African American literature as a historiography of racialized sexuality, and it will inspire elaborations in the most generative directions.\" -- Roderick A. Ferguson * GLQ *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments ix\u003cbr\u003e Introduction. Against the Closet: Racial Identity and the Bodily Basis\/Biases of Sexual Identity 1\u003cbr\u003e 1. \"The Strangest Freaks of Despotism\": Queer Sexuality in Antebellum African American Slave Narratives 25\u003cbr\u003e 2. Iconographies of Gang-Rape: Or, Black Enfranchisement, White Disavowel, and the (Homo)erotics of Lynching 51\u003cbr\u003e 3. Desire and Treason in Mid-Twentieth-Century Political Protest Fiction 82\u003cbr\u003e 4. Recovering the Little Black Girl: Incest and Black American Textuality 114\u003cbr\u003e Conclusion. In Memorium: Michael Jackson, 1958–2009 151\u003cbr\u003e Notes 157\u003cbr\u003e Works Cited 181\u003cbr\u003e Index 193","brand":"Duke University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49406070653271,"sku":"9780822352419","price":22.79,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780822352419.jpg?v=1730494426","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/against-the-closet-9780822352419","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}